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The one standout quality that diamond jewelry possesses (that makes them so desirable) is their ability to absorb light and disperse it back to the beholder. Humans have always been mesmerized by these light displays for centuries now.

In the jewelry industry, light performance is the description of how well a diamond stone returns the light to the viewer. These light properties described in light performance are brilliance, fire, and scintillation.

Brilliance

Brilliance is how we perceive the diamond’s brightness. Normally, brilliance is not just the simple return of the light to the eyes of the beholder coming from the stone’s external and internal facets.

Brilliance is also more than just the scintillation, the availabilities of light sources and the contrasts. Included here would be the fluctuating variables of an imperfect human perception.

For some, brilliance is the most important feature to consider a diamond’s beauty. This is because once brilliance is compromised, the diamond’s fire and scintillation are both reduced, too.

Steep diamonds should be set in such a way that the light can enter in the pavilion and is reflected back out to the table (the stone’s top-most facet). Leakages are when a “window effect” is produced and the diamond can be seen through like plain glass.

Scintillation

The idea of scintillation had been thought of as alternating flashes of contrasting dark and brightness produced by facets, caused in turn by the viewer’s movement, the diamond or the illuminating source.

For some experts, defining and measuring scintillation cannot be done accurately, claiming that observations are always personal assessments.

Others would define it as a contrast for brilliant white or fiery colored sparkles that appear brighter to the human eye. “Sparkly” things always catch and attract attention.

One expert defines two kinds of scintillation. Static scintillation is “the amount and the placement of darkness in a diamond seen … [face-up view] in a jewelry store environment from a distance of 16 inches.” Dynamic scintillation “is the sparkle effect [one sees] when [any one of the] diamond, the light or the observer moves.”

Generally, scintillation is the total effect when small flashes of light are seen when the diamond, the light source or the viewer is moved. Consequently, a diamond that is cut and polished that gives off a high level of this quality is considered high in light performance.

There is a common assumption that diamonds with additional facets are more scintillating. (Strangely though, some customers likes better the bolder, blocky scintillation of the Old Mine cuts.)

Fire

The so-called fire in a diamond is its ability to disperse white light into its component colors. These are the spectral colors which are produced when the diamond disperses back the light like an expensive prism.

These flashes of color are more intense and more attractive, though.

However, maximum brilliance and maximum fire cannot be observed at the same time, with the same view and at the same point. Brilliance is best seen in well-lighted areas and fire appears better in a point-lit room.

Whichever quality attracts you to diamond jewelry – brilliance, scintillation, or fire – you certainly are one of those men and woman who had fallen to the magic charms of a very beautiful-looking stone.

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